It had amused Selwyn; he thought of it now--a gay memory like a ray of
light flung for a moment across the sombre background of his own
sadness. Fortunate or unfortunate, Gerald was still lucky in his freedom
to hazard it with chance and fate.
Freedom to love! That alone was blessed, though that love be unreturned.
Without that right--the right to love--a man was no man. Lansing had
been correct: such a man was a spectre in a living world--the ghost of
what he had been. But there was no help for it, and there Lansing had
been in the wrong. No hope, no help, nothing for it but to set a true
course and hang to it.
And Selwyn's dull eyes rested upon the ashes of the fire, and he saw his
dead youth among them; and, in the flames, his maturity burning to
embers.
If he outlived Alixe, his life would lie as the ashes lay at his feet.
If she outlived him--and they had told him there was every chance of
it--at least he would have something to busy himself with in life if he
was to leave her provided for when he was no longer there to stand
between her and charity.
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